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The Meditation Experience

The Meditation Experience
Volume I

These nature meditations, a series of inner journeys for peace, insight and healing, will open your heart, expand your senses, and awaken your mind to the wellspring of wisdom within you.
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Recently I walked into my chiropractor's office and asked how he was doing. "Lots of challenges," he laughed, "so lots of growth and progress." I loved his positive perspective: It's all progress, no matter what!

Perspective often disappears into the mental fragmentation described by Edgar Cayce as "broken points of consciousness." The brain, speeding up to the riot of modern life, deals with this stress by multi-tasking, but soon blurs with fatigue and confusion. The peaceful, easy rhythms of the brain – synched by resonance to the natural world – are forgotten for the moment and occasionally for a lifetime.

Perhaps you've felt your thoughts bouncing around inside your head, colliding with one another so that you can't slow them down, can't think straight, and don't see which way to turn? This mental state, the result of stress, anxiety and panic (usually induced by anger, resentment, frustration and fear), is a far cry from the higher perspectives of my chiropractor.

Of course, it's easy to be calm, clear, relaxed and insightful while engaged in energy healing, meditation, creative endeavor, spiritual study, communion with nature, and moving meditations like t'ai chi or chi kung. Brainwave frequencies – the speed of electrical activity in the brain/mind – obligingly slow and deepen into the peaceful centeredness of the meditative mind, which is open and flowing with self-awareness, enjoys creative challenges, and devotes itself to living a life of clarity, joy, meaning and purpose.

Resting inside itself, the meditative mind awakens to an awareness of its deep intuition, which is always present yet not always heard. In the silence, intuitive awareness guides us out of destructive patterns and behaviors, so that we are able to transcend our lower nature and the duality within our own being. Free to explore and create, we let go of what does not serve us and cultivate what does.

With the mind open to itself, we realize our perfection. Fear of the unknown dissipates and loses its grip on us. We come fully awake and devote ourselves to service and the higher awareness enjoyed by enlightened people.

This is how cosmic consciousness evolves of its own accord. Sometimes we awaken spontaneously, but in most of us the brain/mind expands as we do what we came here to do: the work of growth, healing, change and progress.

The Evolution of Consciousness

Recent discoveries in brain science confirm meditation and inner transformation as the evolutionary pathways of the brain/mind into cosmic consciousness. Studies show that focused awareness and sustained attention, the basis of sitting and moving meditation, are responsible for this multi-dimensional expansion.

The "body electric" and the cosmos – which, after all, are inseparable – are so brilliantly constructed that psychology, physiology and the psychic (mind, body and spirit) operate as one and the same.

To begin with, studies show that the old "scripts" that define (and limit) us are laid down between one and eight years of age in our theta brainwave frequencies, where we operate at those ages. So when we deepen into the alpha-theta frequencies of meditation, we gain access to what needs healing and the still-deeper intuitive wisdom that shows us how to do the healing and assists us in it!

Remarkably, focused concentration on inner healing unplugs the neural circuitry of old, unwanted patterns of behavior (literally, electrical circuits in our theta brainwaves) and in clearing these blocks frees energy for the creation of neurons (nerve cells) in the emotional amygdala and the hippocampus, the residence of our memory, creativity, insight, intuition and spirituality.

So while we are letting go of old issues, we are building new circuitry and brainpower – exactly where we need it most!

While we rest in the focused awareness and sustained attention of meditation to do the work of inner transformation, the brain – not unlike a computer "hard drive" – relaxes enough to "defrag" and revitalize the whole system.

* First, the brain's left and right hemispheres move into balance. The balanced brain, free of static interference, more closely coordinates with its central nervous system to restore and heal the body.

* Once the body's nervous system is in balance, the kundalini life force is better able to uncoil and rise from its seat at the base of the spine up through the large resonating cavity of the heart into the smaller cavity of the skull. Here, compression of the energy raises it into megahertz frequencies that produce gamma brainwaves; these vibrate the parietal lobes of the brain at the crown chakra (spiritual center) into spiritual ecstasy, spontaneous awakening and the brainwave biofeedback pattern of the evolved mind.

* Now humming with energy, the brain surges electricity into its frontal lobe (or prefrontal cortex), the seat of reason and higher synthesis, creating neurons that actually thicken the cortex to increase our capacity for intelligence. Positive affirmations – or, as Edgar Cayce called them, "ideals" – stated before meditation imprint this "new mind" as it is being formed. We are wise to consult the heart and soul in fashioning our ideals.

* Rather than merely intellectual intelligence, frontal lobe expansion is intuitional. The nerve cells and electrical circuitry accommodate high-frequency gamma brainwaves associated with psychic and mystical states ranging from out-of-body travel and super-psychic intelligence to the omniscience of cosmic consciousness.

* Not surprisingly, we experience this neurogenesis as light. Long-term practitioners of meditation and supersensitive people may see a pulsing indigo light, multicolored lights, or even glyphs in the "third eye" chakra between the eyebrows, where the frontal lobes are located. The rising kundalini life force is audible in rising and expanding frequencies of sound – the Sufi "music of life" – and can be felt as energy running up and down the spine. If it concentrates in the third eye, said Cayce, this indicates one's ability to be a hands-on healer.

* In deep meditations on love and light, the electrical current in the brain runs to the left prefrontal cortex, where we process positive emotions like happiness, compassion and joy. This processing pattern, conditioned by meditation, builds positive neural circuitry through the bodymind, so that we default less often to negative emotional processing in the right prefrontal cortex. We actually become happier people.

* Consciously listening to our spirit for insights that unplug old circuits and build new ones integrates our instinct, intellect and intuition into the harmony, health and oneness of the new human who will build the new earth, through the quiet of meditation which shows us the way.

It's no wonder that meditation makes mystics of us, and mystics gravitate to meditation. Pathcutters devoted to developing five latent chakras are arousing awareness into a constant communion with God, in the sense that God is the cosmos and the energy of the cosmos is God.

Some 75 years ago, Edgar Cayce predicted the development of a fifth "root race" with 12 chakras and a superintuitive connection to God. Both are developing through our steady expansion of the brain/mind, which in a very timely way is preparing us for the future.

In the midst of chaos, planetary awakening is occurring. The meditative mind engaged in inner transformation is developing the cosmic mind that will see us through the global changes now underway. Today, more people are reaching for cosmic consciousness than ever before. And it's available to everyone.

The New Human, A New Soul

Twentieth century poet and essayist G. K. Chesterton wrote, "The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul." But how do we get a "new soul"?

French President Charles DeGaulle answered this in saying, "We may go to the moon, but that's not very far. The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us."

It is always wise to measure our progress, if not through brainwave biofeedback, then by noticing what we project out into the world. If you catch yourself blaming or judging someone else, that's evidence of a pattern of self-blame or self-judgment lodged in your subconscious or unconscious mind.

To let go of what does not serve you, find a quiet place where you can be alone, close your eyes, withdraw your awareness from the outside world, and deepen into yourself.

Go down and in, down and in. Pouring white light from your crown into the thoughts in your head, draw your illuminated thoughts into the center of your heart until you feel quiet, calm and present to yourself. When your awareness is sustained, rest in that restorative peace for awhile.

If you have difficulty maintaining focus, slow your breathing, relax the back of your tongue, and draw more light from your crown and third eye into your heart. Or bring to mind an experience of joy and relive that experience. At some point, you may wish to shift your attention to the area between your eyebrows or your forehead. If you do so, be sure to keep your closed eyes soft and relaxed.

When you are ready, allow a question, issue or challenge to surface in your mind and just sit with it. You need not think about it. Just wait patiently. The solution will become apparent to you, along with an inner certainty of higher awareness that will convince you of its truth.

You could end your meditation at this point, or go the distance into the bliss of spiritual light. Sinking into quiet waters that warm the heart and soul, soothe the mind and heal the body takes us into the very presence of love, the energy that composes us and everything else. Opening to Universal Awareness with awe, gratitude and joy lights up and heals the heart – "spiritualizing" us, as Edgar Cayce put it. It's a real energy that carries us into Oneness. In return, sending love out into the world evolves our brainwaves and life more than anything else.

Sending out Light, without direction or differentiation, with the understanding that Light knows how to alleviate the suffering of all beings is what generates gamma brainwaves. I have seen this in brainwave biofeedback sessions with others and felt and mapped it in myself. Deva Premal's musical partner, Mitten, describes this blissful sensation in these lyrics: "Just an empty heart, full of light/Resting in emptiness."

We fill with Light to become more as-Light. Surrendering to the Oneness and merging with that Oneness transforms the brain, consciousness, body and soul into the change we want to see in the world – the new human in the new earth that we are all so eagerly awaiting.

While the journey to cosmic consciousness involves spontaneous awakenings for a few lucky people, it's a matter of "chop wood, carry water" for most of us, according to neurofeedback practitioner A. Martin Wuttke, founder of the Georgia-based NeuroTherapy Centers International (see neurotherapy.us).

In his own journey, Wuttke has run the gamut. He won a twelve-year battle with alcohol and heroin addiction not with his eight inpatient stays, but after a spontaneous awakening set him free in 1978.

"At a particularly low point in my life, I finally surrendered," Wuttke said. "And with that came a total infusion of the awareness (or awakening to) the Divine presence and Divine identity of all creation. This unveiling of truth never left me."

Living at an ashram with his guru, a direct disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda, Wuttke took up the practice of kriya yoga, the science of breath that charges the brain and body with light and considerably – by about a million years – speeds up the journey to cosmic consciousness.

Finding brainwave biofeedback to be a potential support for such nervous system changes, Wuttke spent 11 years working in two hospitals, for which he designed neurofeedback treatment programs that helped some 15,000 people with addiction issues and stress-related disorders.

But easily his greatest challenge came when his son Jacob was born with brain injuries and developmental problems so severe that by age two, the child was completely unresponsive. Creating a biofeedback response system based on positive rewards, Wuttke and his wife awakened the child's brain within a few months. Although by age six Jacob was unable to remember five letters of the alphabet, he was reading on a 12th grade level at age 14 – in the Atlanta-based school, Jacob's Ladder, formed by the Wuttkes to help children like theirs.

Over the past three decades, Martin has helped people overcome depression, traumatic brain injury, nicotine dependence, eating disorders, chronic pain, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, and chronic mental-emotional issues. Today, while training neurofeedback therapists from all over the world, he operates pioneering neurofeedback clinics in the North Georgia area, as well as in Holland, and soon, the United Kingdom.

Wuttke's insights into consciousness expansion – in the brain and body – will be of interest to every practitioner of meditation and especially to those seeking cosmic consciousness.

Judith: I understand that you pay special attention to the body in your work of healing the mind.

Martin: Yes, from my time in the ashram and working in a psychiatric hospital, I realized that there is really a hierarchy of states that people have to go through before they can move into higher consciousness. Today, people tend to centralize on the brain, rather than the rest of the body. I felt like people were getting way too intellectual because of mindsets like, 'I'm not the body. I'm transcending the body. And the body is not me.'

What I started to realize was how many unhealthy and poorly functioning yogis there were out there. There were all kinds of excuses for why they had these illnesses and diseases. I thought 'There's something missing here.'

On the other hand, I was studying chi kung with a Korean master at the time, and they are full of vitality. But, to be frank, I also noticed that they were not as enlightened as all my yogi friends. So I wondered: where can we join these paths?

In the Western way, people move beyond the body too quickly. When the focus is always on higher states, energy will tend to flow away from the body. That's where we get into trouble, if we don't pay attention to the body. Diseases and malfunctions start there.

Judith: So you ask meditators and people who are releasing issues to clear them out of the body with chi kung?

Martin: Yes, I brought in chi kung masters to work with the lower centers, to get people to be friendly with their bodies again. It's especially important for meditators working with higher states.

For example, if the goal is to experience clear consciousness – or pure consciousness – where high-frequency gamma (40 hz. and up) is maintained, that's going to evidence a tremendous amount of energy. It's an energy that's impartial, so that if somebody has some negative issues, it magnifies what's worked out and what's not. It's kind of like sunlight shining on the flowers and the weeds.

We've found that you really have to go slow with gamma. People have to be prepared for it. It's important to transform the nervous system so it can handle high-frequency states. Our biological circuitry has to be very refined: the limbic system has to be stable and the myelin sheath (covers the spinal cord) myelinated. Chi kung helps with this.

Judith: So if the body – to remain healthy – must be able to process higher frequencies and higher voltage, what might people do to prepare this "light body"? Chi kung and yoga, surely. But what about diet? And what else?

Martin: This is the 'real' NeuroTheology. It depends on what body you are talking about. The genius behind the ayurvedic regimes and Chinese medicine is that they took into account different body types, and although now these methods are applied to general health, originally they were to prepare the body for transformation (alchemy).

So, in general, you would want a sattwic diet (ayurvedic term meaning lightening), but also one that pays attention to grounding and building the nervous system with ojas shakti from ghee (clarified butter) and various herbs. Minerals also create the electrical environment, so these have to be put back in the body, because we have depleted our soils so terribly. Phospholipids and neurotransmitter precursor amino acids and other co-factors are also very important.

I take all this into account when I work with a client. The fundamental preparation, though, involves the quieting/neutralizing of the reactive patterns of aversion and attachment in the brain because this is where we lose energy and wreck the autonomic nervous system. These are the samskaras in yogic philosophy. Meditation, chi kung, chanting are all ways to facilitate this. Kriya yoga actually creates gamma brainwaves.

Judith: How do you accommodate this expansion process in yourself? And how does consciousness expansion feel to you?

Martin: I meditate as much as I can. I would spend all day if I had time. Honestly, I would be in a cave or monastery in the Himalayas, but my guru told me to share what I know with the world.

It takes me about a minute or two, and I can now go into higher samadhi and stay there most of the time. I pay attention to diet, exercise, etc. and take lots of whole food supplements/organics. I have cosmic consciousness (expansion) accessible when I turn attention to it, but for the most part chop wood, carry water.

Twenty-five years ago I would get extremely high (in consciousness), so I had to learn to ground, stay firmly connected with this earth we inhabit for now in these bodies. And this has made a huge difference.

Walt Whitman personified cosmic consciousness. He was very well integrated with this plane, and I love his musings. My grounding came from my chi kung practice, so I try to teach almost all of my clients how to do this. When you learn to ground, all the spiritual knowledge/light can manifest.

From the pole star to the center of the earth is a ray of creation and transformation of energy. We are a part of this ray, serving as transmitters. We just have to learn to cooperate with this by transforming our nervous system into what it was intended to be.

The more electrically efficient the brain is, as a vehicle, the more clear consciousness will be expressed through it.

Judith: What is reasonable for us to expect to attain?

Martin: I think it's possible for virtually everyone to attain the highest state of self- and God-realization. That is the birthright of every human being.

Judith: What would that look like?

Martin: Here's the joke the universe plays on us. It's just a matter of pulling the veil away. What it looks like is what you see when your sight is clear. You look out the window: It's pure consciousness.

For people to be in this awareness all the time is the challenge and requires some work. The most important work is to surrender the notion that they're not there yet.

Judith: Where do we start?

Martin: We all need a systematic program of self-actualization. There are those fortunate people who have spontaneous awakenings, but these are relatively few.

Find an authentic path – and there are many out there, everything from Buddhism to yoga, Taoism to Christian mysticism. But it has to be systematic, and it does require self-discipline, surrender, and a stick-to-itiveness. When we start jumping from one thing to another without getting our feet firmly planted, we may never get the meat of what we're looking for.

Finding a good teacher is a start. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. My experience has been that suffering is a huge path, unfortunately. Most people I run across who have achieved a degree of consciousness have usually been through some significant suffering. It makes us cry out to a universe that's responsive. And it will respond.

Judith: So, we should be reassured?

Martin: Yes. We're in a divine presence. We just don't know it. There's nothing to fear. Everything is that. There is no separation. There can't be. It's just a matter of reminding ourselves to acknowledge that. You don't have to go anywhere. It's right here.

All the myths and legends point to this. The Holy Grail was always right in front of you.

It's easy to throw around terms like enlightenment, cosmic consciousness, illumination and awakening. But what do they really mean? And when do we get there?

Throughout time, mystics, masters and saints have fascinated us with their spiritual adventures. In 1901, Richard Bucke's classic book, Cosmic Consciousness, defined higher states of awareness as a natural expansion from "percepts" (sense impressions) to "recepts" (a group of sense impressions), to concepts which build intelligence and, at some point, expand into the intellectual illumination that fires the brain into cosmic consciousness.

It is a natural expansion, he wrote, from primitive sense consciousness to verbal self-consciousness to intuitive cosmic consciousness.

An Experience of Illumination

Bucke's investigations were driven by a spontaneous awakening to cosmic consciousness. Near the beginning of this thirty-sixth year, he spent an enjoyable evening with two friends, reading the poetry of Shelley, Keats, Browning and especially Whitman, whom he especially admired. Riding home in a hansom cab in an English city, he was calmly and peacefully recalling the ideas and images in the evening's poetry when suddenly, a flame-colored cloud wrapped itself around him.

When he realized that the red cloud was within him, exultation and joyousness filled him with bliss and opened to what he called intellectual illumination. He saw that the cosmos is not made of dead matter, but is a living Presence, that the soul of man is immortal, that the benevolent universe serves all things, that the foundational principle is love, and that the happiness of everyone is in the long run absolutely certain.

In the few seconds during which this illumination occurred, this Canadian-born farmboy and Old West adventurer, now a respected medical doctor learned more, he later said, than in his entire previous life, and more than anyone could ever have taught him.

The good doctor spent his professional life working in psychiatric institutions, where he observed and thought about the workings and development of the human brain and mind. He was never the same after his spiritual awakening. Until his death in 1902, he experienced many other "aha" insights and revelations.

Today, we know that these "peak moments" of insight evolved his consciousness by amplifying and increasing the frequencies of his brainwaves, potentially producing the kundalini awakening that builds brain power and opens to the bliss and joy of gamma-induced enlightenment.

Words of Caution

Bucke's book and classics like The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda and Play of Consciousness by Swami Muktenanda show that anyone committed to inner growth for self-transcendence can attain these higher states of awareness. That is, if they want to. Not everyone does.

And indeed, as an essay by Bonnie Greenwell points out in an excellent new book, Kundalini Rising, attempting to relive the bliss and joy of transcendence can create a sense of attachment that pulls us into the pride of ego and self-separation.

Although some yogic practices pursue kundalini awakening and cosmic consciousness, only the steady, natural expansion of the mind, supported by brain and nervous system structures, ensures the safe, lasting development of higher states. Spiritual literature is rife with stories of kundalini awakenings in people who were not ready to process these intense energies, as Martin Wuttke points out. The effects range from hallucinations and mental breakdowns to physical pain and injury, mostly due to unresolved psychospiritual issues and ego grasping in the immature individual.

What Is Enlightenment?

Still, it can't hurt to measure our progress along the path, so that we can see how far we have come and how far there is to go, not to mention how to get there and what to expect along the way.

One of the most interesting roadmaps I've seen is an essay that plots the course in detail: "Final Integration in the Adult Personality," by A. Reza Arasteh, a prolific author and formerly a professor of psychiatry at George Washington University who studied the lives of masters in the East and West. The article appears in a little book called Frontiers of Consciousness: The Startling, Mind-Expanding Guide to the Outer Limits of Human Awareness, edited by John White and published in 1974.

Arasteh defines the expanded consciousness of enlightenment as:

"a suprarational, suprasensory level of mentation whose existence,
especially in the Orient, has been known since antiquity under a variety
of regional and ritual terms: nirvana of Buddhism; satori of Zen;
samadhi of yoga; unio mystica of Catholicism; shema of cabbalism;
(Richard) Bucke's cosmic consciousness; and existentialism's kairos, to
name a few."

These descriptors – not in sequential order – by Bucke and Arasteh may remind you of your own journey or the characteristics of cosmic people you know:

* The radiant joy of the enlightened one touches and uplifts others. This radiance is an electromagnetic force that effortlessly draws to the master what is needed and wanted in any given moment. People are attracted to the master's wisdom, kindness, generosity and warmth, as to the light of the sun.

* Experiencing sensations of light, the enlightened one and his/her followers are bathed in emotions of supreme joy, rapture and ecstasy that extend far beyond the ordinary. While resting in a peaceful, joyous state, an intellectual illumination comes in a lightning flash of identification and merging with creation, the infinite, the immortal: all opening to an understanding of the meaning and drift of the universe. Sensations of oneness and unity open to transcendental love and compassion. Fear of death falls away and physical and mental suffering vanish.

* The illuminist, reappraising the material things in life, considers riches and abundance unimportant now compared to the treasure of the ultraconscious, or superconscious, mind. There is something much greater: a quickening of the intellect, an uncovering of latent genius, an enhancement of mental and physical vigor and activity, and a sense of mission that is so moving, the person wants and needs to tell others about it.

* Finally, the enlightened one experiences an inner and outer radiance, as if charged up by some divine power with a magnetic force. This transfiguration of being causes the enlightened master to love each and every soul and to open for them a path of beauty and light to the Greater Love.

Milestones and Roadsigns

While reading Aresteh's milestones, consider where you are and how far you might want to go.

Stage 1. We become aware of multiple realities and the existence of something greater than anything on Earth. Either your own inner knowing or an external event occurs to awaken you to the superordinary world of the spirit. Perhaps you are physically healed or experience a peak moment while in nature. Perhaps your rational mind expands beyond material reality for no apparent reason at all. Whatever the stimulus, you become aware of multiple realities.

Stage 2. Once we become aware of something greater than the material world, we are guided into a new relationship with reality. Sensing the presence of the divine in the ordinary world, we attune to our own deep intuition, through which we cleanse, purify and reconcile the heart, mind and body. Soon our values, interests and action all submerge into one and behavior becomes spontaneous: the function of insight – sudden awareness – is rooted in the creative force that man's essence shares with the cosmic essence. In this state everything in the world comes anew and a succession of insights illuminates the mind and increases vision. These intuitive flashes cause the separation between subject and object to cease to exist, so that union and full integration take place. By this process we are lifted out of judgment and separation into oneness with all things.

Stage 3. We begin to live in an anxiety-free state of consciousness, able to enjoy positive feelings and express ourselves openly and spontaneously. Looking at life through the non-duality of transcendence, we know that everything is for the best and just as it should be. Trusting this frees us to live authentically and speak our truth.

Stage 4. Our sense of connection within ourselves and with everything else deepens now, and we expand into the infinite. In this advanced state, where all is one, we unite with cosmic consciousness to instantly access all love, joy, wisdom and knowledge. Time and space cease to limit us. As one soul living in no-time, we materialize and dematerialize at will, drawing on divine light to heal ourselves and others.

Stage 5. We become a constant creative attitude, finding joy in deeds that benefit others regardless of hoped-for rewards. We serve others as Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jesus, Buddha and other enlightened masters (and mistresses) served humanity. No longer do we need to write, record or create in physical form. We live so completely in the present moment that divine energy travels into and through us to radiate outward and heal and transform those who come into our presence.

Final integration also gives the master:

* The insight to read the signs and symbols in nature and life

* The insight to write a detailed life history.

* The presence of enormous energy which enables the enlightened master to carry the burdens of others and the world without pain.

* Insight into human evolution, history and nature.

* The ability to endure solitude without boredom while living in any community.

* Recognition of the value and worth of the nonhuman environment.

* Perception of natural phenomena as symbolic of a universal communication. The master sees natural objects as units resembling life.

Arasteh points out, and you know from your own experience, that what is common to all of these stages is inner awareness, which intuitively points to the guideposts that lead us to each next step.

Wherever we are on this path, of course, is where we need to be. Progress into a new stage can be lasting, or we can slip and slide around while gaining the stability of mind and continuity of consciousness arising out of focused awareness and sustained attention.

Like a holograph, what is in the mind defines consciousness, life and world. Everything is a mirror of everything else – which makes expansion a simple path, at its essence. In the quiet mind, we look, see and correct our course by letting go of what we don't need in favor of what we do.

Each step comes easier, buoyed as it is by the joys of self-mastery and radiant connection with the divine.

Although I realized in a vivid, technicolor dream some years ago that everyone is part of my spiritual journey, the impulse to write, study and research is nevertheless so strong in me that I tend to be impatient with whatever gets in my way. So I am constantly seeking to balance my work, family, relationships and personal time.

If you struggle with this challenge, too – and who doesn't? – you may find inspiration in this meditative writing, which I stumbled on while writing this newsletter. It called me to higher perspectives during a family emergency, which turned out much for the best because I followed this guidance.

Q: I am so tired of people's troubles and demands, and I long to be around calmer and saner people – to escape to wherever I can to write my books, meditate and enjoy life. Am I creating these disruptions, attracting them, or what?

A: Listen to the words in thine own heart, dear one, to see the truth of thy life. In each soul are directions related to the fulfillment of its destiny, and so it is that thy work is being done with those who need it most and at the same time teach thee to master thine own mind. For only with this can service to others and self be given.

What may also be seen is this: In the annals of time, contracts are made with those for whom love is greatest and those to whom much is owed. At times these are the same. And so it is that one is drawn into lifetimes with these souls sharing karma or needing to absolve it. Above all, know this: where we are in any given moment is exactly where we must be.

For not one or two things intersect in the present moment, but infinite realities to create the one known. Sharing a reality with another, then, is an incomparable gift of one to the other and each to all. Always this occurs through the motivation and impetus of love.

Be at peace, then, with the challenges in thy life and the people who bring them. For this was chosen by each in the matrix of the spirit, where all life choices are made.

Test this for self by asking what is thy purpose.

Q: (Listening inwardly) To serve and heal self and others.

A: Is this being done in thy family?

Q: It is. But I want to do my writing and cannot seem to follow through with it for the constant interruptions. Also, I find myself participating in other people's anger and judgment more than they participate in my peace and higher perspectives. How do I gain boundaries, stability of mind, and sustain higher awareness, when they will not accept or even hear of it?

A. Find in self the higher perspectives, sustain these with prayer, meditation and good health, and lead the way for others to follow. Only this will teach thee what is needed for self's own evolution, that others may be taught what is learned.

Q: Is it unfair or selfish of me to want to finish my book by going away in solitude to do so?

A: Do the work as the heart and mind are inspired and it will be done in perfect time. See not a point of completion or a deadline for the work to be done, but a perfect and right conclusion to the gifts of insight open to thee in every moment. In this elevation of mind is the greatest work done – the most believable, elegant and true.

Let the work flow from the heart, mind and soul, united in the joy of creating in service to God.

Not a chore, but a secret treasure lies before thee. Cherish each moment spent with it. Let it set thee free.

"The beaten path is the safest, but the traffic's terrible."
Jeff Taylor, country musician

"Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it."
Rumi, Sufi poet

"May you so live that all who meet you will be uplifted,
that all who bless you will be blessed,
that all who serve you will receive the greatest satisfaction.
If any should attempt to harm you,
may they contact your thought of God and be healed."
Peace Pilgrim

The Still, Small Voice

The
mission of this newsletter is to bring you the inner peace
needed to access the voice of your soul. With this guidance
we are lifted into our highest and best, and the Earth becomes
a more humane and enlightened place.

Judith
Pennington, editor

Letters
to the Editor

"Excellent, pertinent and captivating writing. Thanks!"

Keith Varnum
Phoenix, Arizona

"I read your newsletter and loved, loved, loved it.
The article on blame was great! I also loved your Conversations
with Cass. I’ve asked the same
questions (about religion) myself and your answers were
so right on target."

D.L., New Jersey

"I receive many e-mails about the war with Iraq. Your
articles are the first to come to the understanding that
war looms about us because we require its
presence to learn about peace. Thanks for your words."